The Herald - The Herald Magazine
EATING OUT AND DRINK
HAVE YOU ever,” the guy says, looking intensely at me as I perch at a two-seater aluminium-topped table, aluminium chopsticks in hand, “had bibimbap?” No, I lie. In my defence, it could be on the list of questions to unmask suspected food critics for all I know. “Ah,” he says. “Well, you take your chopsticks, or a spoon, and you break up that fried egg.”
At this point we both look down the sides of a deep aluminium bowl into a little clearing. There, surrounded by bushels of carrot logs, a forest of healthy stuff and big, fat mounds of bulgogi beef a pale, shivering and barely fried egg blinks back nervously at us. “You take that spoon and you go all the way through to the bottom of the bowl where the rice is and you break it all up, and mix it – mix everything – with the chilli sauce. Then you eat it.” Gulp, I think, as that little fried egg is swiftly dispatched and the whole bowl turns grisly red with chilli sauce and orange with decimated vegetables.
I put some in my mouth. I have a revelation. My goodness. This is actually as dull as it was the last time I had it. It tastes of rice and vegetables covered with chilli sauce. I’d be surprised if this much chilli sauce in a bowl of cornflakes would taste any different. Though this is undoubtedly healthier.
Koreans apparently love bibimbap. I should point out that nobody on either side of the counter in Kimchi Cult tonight looks even vaguely Korean – not even me, and it was once suggested I sported a Kim Jong-Il no3 haircut. In fact with their red Kimchi Cult T-shirts and that hip neon sign I’m thinking this little converted shop unit is more IT Crowd than anything else. You know – geeky, but in a good way. And yes, that is Apache by the Sugarhill Gang you’ve been hearing playing in the background the whole time. Da-da da-da-da da-da-da da-da ... Jump on it!
So anyway, there was a brief chat with the girl behind the counter when I ordered earlier. That ended with me carrying a green plastic bottle of Aloe King back here. “OKF No1 World Sales Brand,” the label shouts. My initial reaction? Urgh. I’ve just swallowed a 1970s hair salon. Then it’s pleasant, soothing. OK, weird. That chat also ended with me accidentally ordering bulgogi beef in a bao, one of those little buns that looks like a polysterene pillow, and on fries too. So I’m tasting a lot if it tonight. It’s fairly tender, served in strips and with the fries it’s also doused in Kimchi Cult chilli sauce, mayo, cheddar and pretty good chips.
All of this, you would be absolutely right in thinking, like me, doesn’t really amount to a hill of cabbage. Kimchi? Korean food? It’s super fashionable in the States and is now, as all these things do, trickling over here and landing slap, bang in the middle of the young burger market. It’s a cool place, though; I like the staff and the feel, punters steadily coming in and out, sitting at one of the three tables or getting takeaway. Jump to it.
At this point I haven’t tasted the Korean fried chicken served with sweet gochujang hot sauce, er, glaze. It’s been sitting there the whole time. Glazed with hot sauce and dusted with sesame, looking rather shifty and sticky and soggy. It’s not. At all. To
my genuine surprise the skin is super-crisp and light, the free-range chicken inside extremely juicy, even delicious, the hot sauce a useful complement.
As I’m biting into the second thigh, the guy at the table next to me jumps up and says: “Hey, can I order some more of that chicken, please?” Hey man. I’m going to do exactly the same. High five.